Tuning in beauty and tuning our trash ...

Just as I was beginning to feel that the country is becoming a little trashy and my mind a little frazzled, I discovered something beautifully offsetting. It’s a recording of Bach’s Sonata Number 2 in A minor as performed by Itzhak Perlman. It’s amazing that, just as one feels overcome by the news, there is a solution as simple as tuning out the news and tuning in Bach.

Why it is better than reading the news?

- More sublime

- Lowers blood pressure

- Elevates the mind to the spiritual

- Was created by an adult

- For both creation and performing, requires talent, knowledge, and thought

- Will be around long after the current mess

Why is it better that watching the Fox Hate Show?

- Are you kidding me?

Enjoy this for yourself.

Feel the peace ...

We're all French today ....

When you wake up in the morning and there is a part of our soul like the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris  missing and so much ugliness still extant, it makes one think. I thought about the French, and France, a lot yesterday. I suspect we all did.

I’ve never been there. I thought about it once. I could have extended for another six months in the “Dirty Little War,” and they would have sent me anywhere in, what they called back then, the “Free World,” for a month and then brought me back. It was called “basket leave” and didn’t count toward any leave on your records. It was free, but so would have been the “ass-whupping” my Sainted Mother would have given me next time I saw her.

Still, I thought about it. I had read that those folks drank wine with breakfast and I thought that was pretty neat. Oh yeah, there were the cathedrals and museums and places where Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and the others showed out. It would have been terribly interesting, but I opted to return home, or at least to go to Charleston, South Carolina and live aboard a ship for a year and a half. Oh well. Sainted Mother was happy, but she didn’t have to deal with the people of South Carolina and their gendarmes. They made the Viet Cong seem like Disneyland tour guides.

At any rate. I’ve thought about the French over the years. I’ve heard that they don’t like tourists, but I’ve also heard that they don’t like anyone and that it is only Americans who take it personally. My father-in-law was through there with the 79^th Infantry Division. He wasn’t too fond of the French, but then, like I’ve heard many a veteran of the “Good War” say, the only Europeans that the American soldiers liked and identified with were the German people, and that was after all the fighting and crap.

He told the funniest story. During the occupation, he saw a young woman standing in the yard holding a young dog. Trying to maintain good international relations, he commented on what a nice “puppy” she had. After several moments of miscommunication, she nodded in understanding and giving the universal “wait one” sign, ran into the house, returning moments later with a partial role of toilet paper.

I thought about when the French opted out of the monumental crime and misadventure known as the American invasion of Iraq. There was once, while at a “church” function, I heard a dentist, his son, and a “minister,” without one second of military service between them, referring to “French Surrender-Monkeys.”

Gagging, I held my tongue, but thought about French villages that, after World War One could hardly muster an undamaged man between the ages of 14 and 70, “Surrender Monkeys” indeed. War is a simple matter for people, like most of our current leaders, who have never seen one up close and personal.

So, I spent some time yesterday regretting the fact that a wondrous work of human endeavor was gone while the most corrupt government in American history still stood. You know, I read once where the French had let that cathedral deteriorate, paying it scant attention, until Victor Hugo immortalized it in his famous novel. Then, observing it, as if for the first time, falling into ruin, they went about restoring its wondrous beauty.

           

Maybe it takes the realities of abuse and neglect to awake people to the beauty, not only of structures, but a country as well. I, for one, will hold out for restoration instead of the all-consuming fire. I think it's important.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health,

and quiet breathing.
- John Keats

My Redacted Life: Chapter 34

August neared and the wedding date loomed on the horizon. I was busy working during the day, trying to ignore the jokes and jibes. Was I the first person who had ever planned to marry?

Oh well, Brenda was busy sewing, in addition to her own wedding dress, those for her mother, her bridesmaid, and the bridesmaid’s sister.

Some evenings she would take a break and we would drive out old Highway 70 along Hill’s Lake, find a quiet spot, open a bottle of Boone’s Farm Wine, and talk about the future. We would lean our heads together and count our blessings until the sun went down or the mosquitoes overtook us. Here I was, fulfilling a dream. I had a sports car convertible and a lover with long flowing red hair to ride next to me in it. I had come a long way.

At the office, the partners had asked if I wanted something called “a bachelor’s party.” I had no idea what that was. They didn’t have those in the old United States Navy. They explained that it was a party for men only where they got the husband-to-be drunk, acted silly, and talked dirty.

“Talk dirty?”

“Yeah, you know … filthy jokes and all.”

“That’s all you do?”

“Well, we get you drunk. It’s like one last super-blast before you get married.”

“You just get drunk, talk dirty, and make insulting jokes about being married?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Sounds like fun to me.”

I didn’t mention it to Brenda on any of our evening rides. Once though, I parked at the edge of a large field of soybeans stretching far into the horizon, with a band of clouds and thunderheads at its end.

“Isn’t this land wonderful?” she said.

I studied the soft curve of her back contrasted against the long straight furrows. The silence unnerved me and I said, “It’s okay here.” She didn’t respond so I added. “I guess next to the sea, I like the mountains best.”

She turned and looked at me the way a teacher would look at a student who had failed to solve the easiest problem of the day. “That’s just it,” she announced as if announcing the solution.

“What?” I said.

She smiled and the smile completely unmanned me, a trick of hers I had learned to dread.

“You see, here you create your own mountains.”

“Your own mountains?”

“Yes,” she said and her eagerness and certitude kept me unbalanced. “That way, you don’t suffer constraint.”

“Constraint?”

“Yes, constraint. Your mountains can be as big as you want or as small. They can be covered with snow or even have a giant cherry on top like that one there.” She pointed to a thunderhead on the horizon, topped by a round black cloud that did indeed seem to radiate a red hue in the late afternoon sky.

I held her hand. We studied the field, spread out before us like a chart drawn to illustrate perspective.

“How do they plow them so straight, the rows?” I asked.

“They have a marker on an arm of the tractor that they use to measure from the last row plowed,” she said. “Like this land itself―each generation is built upon the values of the last.” She paused and then added, “Daddy’s been doing it so long, though, he really doesn’t need a marker.”

I looked back at the fields and felt a breeze that swept me forward for a fraction of a second—not really long enough to register fully— and I saw the tedium of, year after year, coaxing life from this fecund land. Her voice jerked me back the way a young calf is jerked as he comes to the end of the roper’s lariat.

“It would be truly sad, wouldn’t it?”

I focused on her and processed what I thought I heard her say.

“Sad?” I said.

“It would be so sad to know that you had actually to be where the mountains were in order to have them. That you couldn’t just do it whenever or wherever you chose.”

I failed to find a response. Instead, I looked at the distant clouds as they transformed themselves into snow-clad mountains of heart-piercing peace and beauty.

Was I about to marry a sorceress?

Maybe Keats had it right.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 24 (Cont._2)

Well, I had me a girlfriend. The thought kind of sobered me. What to do next? Ah, I had it. Road Trip!

So Brenda and I planned a trip to Fayetteville next weekend. I would introduce her to my friend Mike Dunkum and some of the crowd he ran with. That would put our relationship to the test.

I think I’ve mentioned Mike before. He’s the one who dropped out of college because, as he put it, “Inertia overtook me.” A recruiting sergeant named “Sergeant Goforth” (I’m serious) talked him into signing up for a tour in the United States Army with a path toward becoming a Green Beret officer.

He did. With his training and all, he arrived in Vietnam after I did, survived, then finished his four-year tour at Fort Hood while I was stationed aboard the USS Hunley. He returned to Fayetteville to finish his homage to higher education.

He was rooming with Wayland L Godshall, who was a real ladies man, one of those guys who just had something unexplained that made him attractive to the opposite sex. It wasn’t unusual for him, while standing and talking to friends in a public place, to have young girls, total strangers, walk up and ask for his autograph.

The thought did pass through my mind that I might better not introduce him to Brenda, but I figured that would prove a test of our relationship as well.

I went back to work. The days seemed a bit longer. Charles Witsell and I were working on the design report for the Hope project. That proved a major learning experience for me, watching him work and learning from him. I was writing most of the time, learning to pare down my words to simple declarative sentences and, like my pal Ernest, to distrust adverbs.

Friday finally came. I had the Green Angel all filled with gas and checked out. I managed to leave work early and we were soon easing our way to the home of the “Mother of Mothers,” my Alma Mater, the University of Arkansas, where sports teams were trained with ultimate precision, to break the hearts of their fans. I didn’t worry about that, though. I, as Bob Dylan said, “ ... [had] my little lady right by my side.” I even think she was glad to get out of town for a spell, even if it was with me.

Rush hour traffic wasn’t too bad in those days. The “white-flight panic” hadn’t hit yet, though it was on the way like a devouring demon. We talked. There wasn’t much else to do the except listen to the radio, which neither of us cared for very much.

I learned that she had considered teaching on an Indian reservation upon getting her teacher’s certification. She had also considered moving to St. Louis where her uncle lived and where teachers got a little better pay than the measly $400 per month that our state, to its eternal shame, paid those who taught its children.

The freeway ended at the Morgan interchange and we moved onto Highway 65. To the West, they were planning an entire new city on land previously owned by the U.S. Army. It would be called “Maumelle,” after a nearby waterway and would be one of only two cities built under the “New Town” program set up by the federal government. No one ever divulged the need or reason for a new city there. It was just one of those things that seemed like a good idea back when our country still dreamed big dreams.

I told Brenda about the project. Charles Witsell’s parent firm was working on it with an internationally renown urban planner named Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis, a man with ideas as big as his name. She appeared to be interested. I never knew for sure. I would find that she was a master at keeping her true thoughts to herself.

Somewhere in America, 
the traffic engineer's
greatest nightmare.

We passed the time in talk, reaching the City of Russellville before dark. There we enjoyed another of those wonderful streets scenes of past life. Gorgeous mansions lined the highway amidst magnificent oaks that spread overhead, creating a long, leafy tunnel similar to the one in Hope. This view would also fall to the highway department’s wrath years later, but only after the police had to remove a group of ladies who chained themselves to the trees in protest against their being sacrificed to the automobile.

It never occurred to me back then to sacrifice for urban beauty. I had all the beauty I needed sitting next to me.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 16 (Cont._2)

 It finally happened of course. As Robert Burns said once, “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men  Gang aft a-gley.” Mine did, for damn sure.

It happened this way.

For several months, I had been doing some car trading. I wound up with some money in the bank and a 1960 vintage Ford sedan in perfect condition. An elderly lady’s son sold it to me after she had gotten too old to drive it to the bank a couple of times a month. I had a buyer all ready for it in Pine Bluff, an elderly lady who just needed to drive to town a couple of times a month for groceries and to the doctor. Did I mention the car was in perfect condition?

It was, save for the need of a new universal joint and replacement of a headlight. My brother and a neighbor replaced the universal joint, and I was engaged in replacing the “headlight of destiny” when it happened, right there on the parking lot of our apartment building.

I had the hood up on the car and had just finished the job when movement to my right caught my eye. Two figures had left the building and were walking toward a car. One was Vernell, the sister of my next-door neighbor, Rita. I didn’t know the other one. They were dressed like young women of that time dressed who, as they would say, were “lookin’ for adventure, and whatever comes our way.”

As for me, it was a warm early spring Friday evening and I wore a “Join the Navy and Ride the Waves” T-shirt and a pair of dirty jeans. My hair had grown a couple of inches since I had parted ways with the military, and my hands were greasy. I stared.

When they saw me looking, they ceased walking and began to “sashay.” If you don’t know what that means, find a true Southern girl and let her show you. For now, just understand that it has a stupefying effect on men, especially Southern men with weak minds.

I nodded. Vernell nodded. The apparition with her looked at me for a second, then shook the long red hair that fell down her back. She didn’t speak, but the look she gave me spoke with such thunder that it drowned out the sounds of the traffic on Cantrell.

It said, “Just what the hell are you looking at?” She sashayed on by me.

I stood there like a man who had just had 15 flashbulbs go off in his face at one time.

She wasn’t tall, but she seemed to have the power and tension of spring steel wound inside her as she walked away. The long hair had framed an oval face, the kind that cameras love. The face was soft and ruddy, more Celtic than Mediterranean. She would have been the perfect choice for a “Visit Ireland” magazine ad. Shapely legs flapped the hems of a dark blue dress that was set off with a bow. It swayed with a music that only she was hearing. I was sure that her walk was a copyrighted achievement.

I dropped a heavy screwdriver on a toe sticking from a “flip-flop.” I didn’t feel it. Somehow, I managed to close the hood, gather my tools and walk back to the apartment.

Rita stood in the doorway of her apartment, fully dressed for a change, well, except for buttoning her blouse. We exchanged nods. “Not going out of a Friday night?” she said. "Even I have a date."

“Maybe later.” I started to my door, but stopped. “Could I ask you something?”

“Her name is Brenda Cole and she is from Lonoke, teaches school there.”

She had been watching all the time.

“Her daddy is a farmer, and she’s an only child, a real “Daddy’s Girl.” They say she can drive a tractor like a man, even has one of her own—a tractor that is.”

I nodded.

“On some days, she’s engaged to a basketball coach,” she said.

My face must have given me away. I never was a good poker player.

Then Rita smiled at me and winked. “But on other days, she’s not.” She gave what seemed like a little mocking laugh and closed her door.

With teachers like this, could I
have possibly done better?

Morning Thoughts: February 2, 2018

 There is such beauty in works of art, one wonders why we concentrate so devotedly upon the mundane. I do it. We all do. Sometimes I leave the village, though, and it is a grand experience.

Consider the adagio movement to Mozart’s Serenade for 13 Winds. That’s the one the Salieri character in Amadeus describes as sounding like a “rusty squeeze box” at first, until the oboe and clarinet pierce the dimness. You won’t see a political candidate producing anything so ephemeral unless Abe Lincoln rises from the dead.

I’ve failed at the arts like I’ve failed at so many things, but I keep trying because the effort makes me smile and keeps me happy. I’m headed out this morning to see a dear friend name Mike Benetz to resume guitar lessons after a holiday break. I’m afraid I’m headed for rough seas.

My fingertips have lost their callouses from lack of practice.

My favorite guitar has the equivalent of a flat tire, i.e. a tuning peg gave up the ghost weeks ago.

I have the rhythmic capability of aging banker at Jimmy Buffett concert.

I haven’t practiced “Mike’s Misery” nearly to the extent that would allow advancement to a half-step closer to just below average.

What is Mike’s Misery, you might ask?

 

Notice: the bottom string is open and must
strike clear. Impossible? Quite.

It is a bar chord form, commonly called an A-shape. You don’t hear much about it because by the time beginners are ready for it, 90 percent of them have given up art and gone back their cell phones for joy and solace. It is, however, one of the basic building blocks of the guitar. During a PBS special this week, I noticed that Eric Clapton dotes on it.

In other words, you can’t live without it.

As you can see from the photograph, it requires a hand position that is literally impossible to make. The price for accomplishing it is ten years constant effort or the price of one’s soul. Take your pick.

I chose practice, for after a quick trip to the crossroad at Clarksdale, Mississippi, I found that my soul had not been rehabbed to the point of being valuable enough yet for the “A-shape.” I was offered a single-note version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and further negotiations proved fruitless.

My problem is that my dear friend Mike thinks that Mike’s Misery is the best thing that has happened to the guitar since The Wildwood Flower first aired. (He has even developed a version of that ditty that requires … you guessed it). Most of the time, nearly all the time, he is one of the kindest, gentlest, most sympathetic, and most wonderful people you could ever meet. But, the insertion of the A-shape into a tune still brings a Paganini-like gleam of devilment into his eyes.

That’s enough. Think I’ll go practice. I don’t want to experience that gleam today. There are things in life worth great effort, after all. Ask Mozart.

Seems easy to me. Ask Clapton.

Morning Thoughts: November 5, 2017

I was in an ugly frame of mind this morning: another year older, eye swollen shut from a wasp sting, and a list of “must do” items a mile long. The bi-annual ordeal with time change has begun, and, furthermore, it’s Sunday.

On top of all that, I’m scheduled for an overnight trip this week. That means I’ll have to pack a bag, wear a suit, and sleep alone in a galaxy far away.

If that doesn’t suck enough, I need to patch a hole in the roof of one of the buildings at the farm. Along with the “year older” bit, the height at which I become debilitated from fear of heights is a foot lower, now standing at six feet—two feet lower than the roof.

Just thinking of the national news creates ten percent rise in my blood pressure.

The devil on my left shoulder began to list my shortcomings.

- I’ll never write like John Steinbeck.

- I’ll never play guitar like Steve Davison or Mike Benetz.

- I’ll never create woodworking masterpieces like the fellows at the hardwood store.

- I’ll never be elected to the Piddlers’ Hall of Fame unless I drop my remaining consulting work.

- I’ll never finish Finnegan’s Wake.

- I’ll never convince some of my friends to use The Sermon on the Mount as a voter’s guide.

- I’ll never give Scarlett Johansson a case of the vapors.

Wait a moment!

That's when I woke up. I looked into the sleeping face of the prettiest woman in my world. A soft glow surrounded that face like a thin gauze pressed from fairy dust. She smiled in her sleep and whispered "Matthew McConaughey" but I knew she was thinking of me.

I smiled. Another year older and another year wiser and less likely to panic over what someone possessing high power tweets. America has survived worse.

Music? If it still makes you smile, to hell with fame and fortune. And the most important thing about woodworking is not making masterpieces, but not cutting off your fingers.

Voting? The arc of history will flow back to justice, peace, and compassion, just you wait and see.

Another year older, but not another year deeper in debt. Our investment portfolios have risen steadily since the Great Recession and we’re currently taking profits in prep for the next GR, or, as we financial gurus put it, “when the chickens come home to roost.”

I’m too old for the draft, but also more advanced in my knowledge of avoidance should we actually achieve the current goal of a two-front war. The bone spurs only bother me at heights above six feet, and helicopters go a lot higher than that.

The three of us are in good physical condition for our ages, and we all still enjoy a glass of wine, a good laugh, and happy music.

With these thoughts a’swirling, I went to the bathroom and stared at my swollen face. It stared back and said “Just remember, this face once snared one of the most beautiful girls in Arkansas."

True that.

Then I walked to the table and fired up the trusty old computer. Lo and behold! That great teacher and writer: The Journalist Sonny Rhodes, had lauded something I wrote.

Suddenly, I was beautiful again.

When you're loved by
someone like this, you
have a damned fine life.